Amherst College
Amherst College, a liberal arts college, occupies a 1,000 acre campus in the small town of Amherst in the western part of Massachusetts about a 90 minute drive from Boston and a 3 hour drive from New York. The college was founded in 1821 by Amherst citizens and town clergy but has no religious affiliations today.
As a member of the Five Colleges consortium which includes Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Hampshire Colleges and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, students from Amherst may take classes at any of the colleges within the consortium.
With a total enrollment of 1,970 students, Amherst has a diverse student body from 48 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico and 66 countries. Students of color form 49% of the student body along with international students who from another 10% of the student body at Amherst.
As of June 2021, Amherst had an endowment of $3.775 billion. About half of Amherst’s 23,000 living alumni are active donors to the college.
Distinguished alumni from Amherst College include President Calvin Coolidge, Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, 5 Nobel laureates , 10 Macarthur Fellows, and many Pulitzer Prize winners.
Costs of attending Amherst College 2022-2023
For 2022-2023, the typical student expense budget and charges include:
Comprehensive fee (tuition, room and board): $80,250
Other student fees (student activities, campus center programs and residential governance): $600
Health insurance* (may be waived): $2,759
Tuition insurance (may be waived): $120 (per semester) ***
Books and supplies (estimated): $1,000
Personal expenses (estimated): $1,800
Travel/Transportation** (estimated; varies by location): $50-$2,500
Cost of attendance: $86,579 – $89,029
Access Amherst’s Net Price Calculator
Amherst Statistics at a Glance
Data from Amherst College website and Common Data Sets
| / | STUDENT DEMOGRAPHICS | FINANCIAL AID | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enrollment | 1,970 | % receiving financial aid | 61% | ||
| Women | 51% | Average financial aid | $60,767 | ||
| Men | 49% | ||||
| Students of Color | 49% | ACADEMIC INFORMATION | |||
| International Students | 10% | Student - faculty ratio | 7:1 | ||
| First Generation (Class of 2025) | 16% | Instructional faculty | 209 | ||
| Average class size | 19 | ||||
| ACCEPTANCE RATES | Classes w/less than 30 students | 84% | |||
| Class of 2026 | 7% | ||||
| Class of 2025 | 8% | 6 year graduation rate | 92% | ||
| ACADEMIC STATISTICS | Number of majors | 42 | |||
| Average GPA | ND | Number of courses | 850+ | ||
| Standardized Test Scores | % students studying abroad | 45% | |||
| SAT 25th to 75th percentile | 1440-1540 | ||||
| % submitting SAT scores | 35% | STUDENT LIFE | |||
| ACT 25th to 75th percentile | 32-34 | Number of student organizations | 200+ | ||
| % submitting ACT scores | 31% | Students who live on campus | 92% | ||
| % submitting test scores | 66% | ||||
| First year retention rate | 98% | ||||
| Class Rank | |||||
| % in top 10% of HS class | 91% | Alumni attended graduate school | 79% | ||
| % in top 25% of HS class | 99% | ||||
| % reporting class rank | 27% |
Sports at Amherst College
Amherst College is a member of NCAA Division 3. It plays a total of 25 NCAA sports, 12 of them for men and 13 for women. In the 2021/2022 season, Amherst College had a total of 641 NCAA athletes comprising 33% of the total student body.
See What NCAA sports does Amherst College play?
Amherst College has won a total of 76 NCAA Division 3 individual championships and 11 team championships.
What you can expect at Amherst College
Amherst prides itself of preparing students in how to use ideas to make a difference in the world. It is very very confident of the value of a liberal arts education and the importance of critical thinking.
Amherst emphasizes its small classes, and open curriculum where students are free to choose from any of the 850 plus courses on offer without need to fulfill any core curriculum subjects. It has a single focus that ensures leading scholars engage daily with their students, and “equipping them for leadership in an increasingly global and complex world.”
Is Amherst College hard to get into?
With the huge surge in applicants for the class of 2025 and 2026, Amherst College’s acceptance rates are now firmly in the single digits putting it in a rare group of only 25 colleges in the country. With an acceptance rate of 7%, Amherst College is extremely hard to get accepted into.
66% of students who were admitted to Amherst College for the class of 2025 submitted standardized test scores compared to the 34% that did not submit test scores. Applicants who have good test scores within the middle 50% range for enrolled students at Amherst (SAT 1440-1540, ACT 32-34) will be twice as likely to be admitted compared to those who do not submit a test score at all.
Like all highly selective colleges, academic performance is just the first hurdle to cross, applicants must still demonstrate their uniqueness to Amherst and show that they possess the qualities that Amherst values in their applicants.
Where do Amherst College graduates work and what do they earn?
According to Amherst College, 91% of its graduating class of 2021 were either employed (70%), in graduate school (21%) or doing volunteer (9%) work 6 months after graduation.
The top industries that Amherst graduates ended up working in included:
Education (23%)
Consulting (15%)
Financial Services (14%)
Healthcare and Public Health (11%)
Government and Nonprofits (11%)
Technology and Data Science (9%)
Law (6%)
Business (4%)
Communication (4%)
Science (4%)
The top 10 job functions that Amherst graduates engaged in:
Research (20%)
Finance (13%)
Consulting (12%)
Education/Teaching/Training (11%)
Engineering - Web/Software (7%)
Legal (7%)
Healthcare Services (5%)
Data and Analytics (5%)
Political Organizing/Lobbying (2%)
Writing/Editing (2%)
Some highlighted employers that Amherst College graduates work at include:
American Institute of Research
Bain and Company
Cornerstone Research
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Deloitte
Dickenson Museum
Epic
Fox Sports
Fulbright US Student Program
Goldman Sachs
Mass General Hospital
MassMutual
National Institutes of Health
Netflix
NY Legal Assistance Group
Salesforce
US House of Representatives
Yale School of Medicine
Access Amherst’s Graduates’ Outcome Report 2021
Earnings Data for Amherst College Graduates
With the costs of attending college becoming prohibitively expensive, it is hard to treat the college experience as a strictly educational and developmental one. You have to think about your earnings potential as well. Unless you are very lucky, chances are that you will graduate with some student debt. Whether you can afford to pay it off in reasonable time, and not have this debt interfere with your ability to live your life without a overhanging debt burden depends on what you can earn when you graduate from college.
Knowing what you can earn with the the degree you earn and the college you earned it at is essential for planning your life. The data we provide here is meant as a guideline only as there will be variance between individuals based on many factors including the types of jobs and employers they pursue.
Data from Payscale based on 215 responses
| / | Median Starting Salary | $57,900 | Number of respondents | 215 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average Base Salary | $83,000 | ||||
| YEARS OF EXPERIENCE | |||||
| BY MAJOR | Entry level | 9% | |||
| Psychology | $56,000 | Early career | 41% | ||
| Economics | $60,200 | Mid career | 23% | ||
| English Langauge and Literature | $58,000 | Late career | 14% | ||
| History | $55,000 | Experienced | 13% | ||
| CAREER AVERAGES | GENDER BREAKDOWN | ||||
| Early Career Salary (1st 5 years) | $72,600 | Female | 57% | ||
| Mid-Career Salary (10+ years experience) | $148,700 | Female Average Salary | $48K - $149K | ||
| Male | 43% | ||||
| BY JOB TITLE | Male Average Salary | $58K to $187K | |||
| Research analyst | $67,000 | ||||
| Program manager, Non-profit organization | $60,934 | ||||
| Software engineer | $97,392 | ||||
| Technical support specialist | $50,868 | ||||
| Chief Financial Officer | $165,105 | ||||
| Business development manager | $87,000 | ||||
| Business development associate | $90,000 |
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